Chapter 57: [Zethe-thoth]
Arthur, seeing the being unmoved changed his strategy. "Where did you sense the delicacy?" he asked, already guessing where it was...
Upon hearing this, all of [Zethe-thoth]’s eyes curved as if it had heard exactly what it wanted to hear.
"thErE," it hissed, as a thick tentacle lifted and pointed North toward the Number 1 Death Zone.
Arthur relaxed a fraction, thinking, Even something like this fears that place. I wonder what it holds.
[Zethe-thoth] continued, "huMaN... whAt i cRave iS thEre. iF yOu geT mE wHat i waNt, i wiLl grAnT yoU liMitLesS poWeR."
Arthur scoffed inwardly. You fear that place, and you think I don’t? Does it take me for a fool? What can it possibly give me that [The Sleepless Sword] cannot?
"I am too weak to survive that area. Maybe if you give me something to defend myself, I might just succeed," Arthur said, trying to scam the entity.
"i hAve sOmetHing liKe thAT. hEre... tAke iT. bUt pRomiSe mE yOu wiLl bRing fOod..."
Suddenly, Arthur acting as if he were hypnotized, murmured, "I promise," and extended his hand.
A tentacle immediately shot at his arm, expanding to reveal rows of razor-sharp teeth aimed at swallowing him whole. But before that could happen, a bright sword intent powerful enough to cut the world radiated from Arthur as he shot backward.
His eyes changed, suddenly looking as though he hadn’t slept in a millennium.
This was [God Descent], a miraculous intervention used by a god to save its most devoted followers.
[The Sleepless Sword] looked through Arthur’s eyes at the Void creature, which continued its attack without an ounce of fear.
The black tentacles closed in on him from all sides, rows of grotesque teeth forming in every single one of them. Saliva leaked from the maws as they lunged at Arthur.
"taSty foOooODdd..."
[The Sleepless Sword] drew the silver sword from its scabbard and slashed toward the door.
A silver beam shot out, cleanly severing the tentacles and the door. The beam kept going, slicing the very mountain in half.
Before [Zethe-thoth] could retaliate, [The Sleepless Sword] escaped, moving like a sword cutting through everything in its path.
In one step, he was outside the mountain. In the next step, he was outside the continent. And in the third step, he was back in Arthur’s heavily sealed room.
He had cut through the laws limiting his senses, and then cut through distance itself to escape.
But just the fact that it took him three whole steps to cross the distance back to Arthur’s home showed exactly how much his divine power was suppressed in this universe.
Arthur collapsed onto his bed, unconscious as the [God Descent] abruptly ended.
....
[Zethe-thoth]’s POV
The dark tentacles slowly withdrew, gathering to form a massive, writhing ball in the center of the broken room.
Eyes of different colors opened across its surface, as if perceiving and trying to understand the various mysteries of this new cosmos.
The tentacles then wrapped tightly around each other, shifting their shape to resemble a humanoid form. But they immediately broke apart, reverting to their spherical shape once more.
Suddenly, as if finished analyzing, tentacle after tentacle detached from the ball and disappeared into the distance, slithering toward unknown destinations.
...
Night’s POV
Back in his home, Night looked incredibly happy as he jumped onto his bed, blissfully unaware of the terrifying undercurrents stirring in the world.
Eve, Lilith, Lucy and Death came out of the Nightmare Domain just then.
Looking at them, he was stunned.
Eve and Lilith now looked entirely humanoid, their bodies resembling female humans but retaining a sleek, futuristic robotic appearance. Standing five feet tall, they looked nearly identical, like mechanical twins.
They look so cool... I want a sleek body like that, Night thought.
Night:
(✧ω✧)
Beside them stood Death. She was now 5.5 feet tall much smaller and more compressed than before and her bones shone like polished white jade.
Looking at his companions, Night complained, "This is cheating. I want an upgrade in my looks, too."
Looking down at himself, his height hadn’t increased by even an inch.
Even his facial features hadn’t undergone the magical "cleansing" improvements he had read about in web novels.
But what happened next was the thing that surprised him the most.
Eve and Lilith spoke in perfect sync, their melodious but slightly robotic voices echoing in the room: "Master, I can finally speak."
Their voices made his eyes shoot wide open. He never thought he would hear such human-like voices from them so soon...
But wait, he thought he heard something wrong. Master who?
Eve and Lilith looked at him expectantly
[ ◕ ▿ ◕ ]
Night not wanting to kill their enthusiasm said, "G-Good."
They then sat on the sofa, not wanting to interrupt. Lucy also hopped up and sat beside them.
Sara and Blade observed their evolutions with curiosity. Meanwhile, tiny Sage just stared at Night, not understanding why he was giving such an exaggerated reaction.
When she had bonded to him earlier, she had already felt four other bonds identical to hers and naturally guessed they were his other summons.
As for why the System had told her she was his first summon, she just chalked it up to the System making a stupid oopsie.
Standing beside them, Death suddenly spoke. "Master, you can sit on my lap."
Night looked at her weirdly. You finally become capable of speaking and this is the very first sentence you say?
Not even waiting for his response, Death walked right up to him, picked him up, sat exactly where he had been sitting and plopped him onto her lap.
Despite her height becoming significantly smaller, Night was still only 3.3 feet (111 cm) tall, so it actually wasn’t too uncomfortable.
Sitting awkwardly on the skeleton’s lap, he didn’t know what to say, so he simply chose to remain completely silent...
Sara looked at the bizarre display with pure amusement.
She tapped on the table once, and different-sized cups appeared, all filled with steaming tea. Then, each cup floated through the air and stopped in front of them, matching their respective sizes.
Sage grabbed her tiny cup as steam rose from the rim.
Being impatient, she took a big sip before Sara could warn her it was hot.
The next second, she stuck her tongue out which had turned bright red from the heat and blew at it frantically.
Poo! Pooo!
@( ￣ з￣)@💨
Watching her struggle, the others became far more careful and patiently waited for the tea to cool down a little.
Night looked at Sara and asked, "How useful is a Profession?"
Blade watched them quietly, while tiny Sage, now sitting on her thighs, looked up in excitement.
She was excited for Night, even though she had absolutely no idea what a ’Profession’ was.
Sara replied, "For a Utility Class, it is incredibly important. But for you, it may not be that necessary."
"However, considering your current financial situation, I recommend you focus on a Profession."
"This way, you will have a steady side income. Or you could become a streamer... though with your secrets, I definitely wouldn’t recommend that."
"Alternatively, you could sell some of your monster corpses to the System Shop, ignore the Profession altogether and focus on pure fighting."
It was then Night remembered something crucial. "Oh! I haven’t even checked the System Shop or this streaming function you talked about."
He had crossed Level 10 yesterday night but completely forgot to check the interface.
Today, being so caught up with academic activities and fighting for his life, it had slipped his mind.
Focusing on the Shop interface, he saw a list of items.
There were different tabs like [Materials], [Herbs], [Weapons & Artifacts], [Metals], [Utility Artifacts], [Potions], [Arrays], [Magic Circles], and much more. He even saw a [Corpses] section.
In that section, there was a huge variety of monster bodies, but their prices were absolutely exorbitant.
Just a basic Level 5 corpse was priced at 10,000 SC. And the monthly allowance he received from the Academy was barely 1,000 SC!
Looking up from the screen, he realized exactly how broke he was.
Night:
( 💸_💸)
Looking at his expression, Sara smiled mischievously. "Do you realize now how broke you are? And how stingy the Academy really is?"
Sara:
(¬‿¬)
Beside him, Blade chimed in, "I would have lent you some SC, but even I am broke. I spent all my savings over the last six years."
Night sighed, "It’s okay."
He really needed some cash right now.
He wanted to buy good equipment for his friends; especially Sage, who needed a good weapon to compensate for her inherently weak constitution.
He did have an idea to permanently improve her weak constitution by giving her [Body Modification], yes but that would have to wait.
It wasn’t something he could afford to rush.
Just when Night was about to make the painful decision of selling his hard-earned stash of Winged Bison corpses in the Shop...
Lucy jumped onto his lap. Reaching into her shadow, she pulled out a card and, eyeing Sara and Blade warily, handed it to Night.
Night took it, shaking his head. "1,000 SC is too little."
But Lucy insisted firmly, "Scan the chip using the System Bank and redeem everything into your account."
Sara looked at the black wolf suspiciously.
Night did as he was told.
Navigating through his interface, he found [System Bank] and used it to scan the golden chip on the matte black card to redeem it.
A prompt popped up asking for a password.
Night frowned. "It’s locked and it’s asking for a password."
Sara frowned. "The pseudo-cards issued by the Academy don’t require a password."
Now even Blade was looking at the interaction with interest...
Night saw Lucy use her tiny paw to smack her own face, clearly annoyed at herself for forgetting something so obvious.
Lucy:
૮(－‸ლ)ა
Then, he heard her teenage voice echo in his mind: "Try ’ShadowHunteress11’."
He entered the password as she said.
A second later, he froze.
Cold sweat formed on his forehead as he finally realized exactly why Lucy had been acting so shifty.
Sara asked worriedly, "What happened?"
Night muttered in a low, breathless voice, "I am rich."
Struggling to hear him, Sara leaned in. "What?"
Staring at his updated balance, he didn’t know what to say. He seriously wondered if he had been caught in a illusion.
[System Bank]
[A/c Holder: Nightmare]
[ID: FR09CMT1UV1111E12M1212]
[Balance: 7,402,209,507 SC (7 Billion)]
I am really, really rich.
( 💵_💵)
